I tried this and it worked for me.  You can’t have played “Contra” for the original Nintendo system without having tapped this code in dozens of times. Now, you can do it in Google Reader, too!  Crazy.
‘Konami Code’ Appears in Google Reader | Game | Life from Wired.com

By typing the code, sans the NES’ occasional “Start” and “Select” additions, (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A) at the initial Google Reader screen a shrugging ninja pops up in the left-hand sidebar, as if to say … something. Honestly it’s a bit of a baffling easter egg.

It’s been way too long since the last link dump, hasn’t it?  Welcome back!

• Have you wondered how “Guitar Hero” might be played on the Nintendo DS?  Wonder no more.  But be afraid.  Be very afraid.  It’s one scary video.

• For my fellow webheads: Mahalo is the new Wikipedia.  Interesting.

• The new iPhone is likely only a week away, and here’s a nice round-up of the unconnected nuggets of news related to it.  It’s the first I’ve seen of Steve Jobs’ increased corporate jet expenses.  That man’s been flying around the world a lot in the last year. . .

• I am a “longtime comics reader and prominent columnist.”  I am so adding that to my resume and business cards. (Thanks, Tom!)

• These are some crazy bookshelves.  I’ll probably be buying mine for the new house at IKEA this summer, thanks.

This week, the DVD release list will appear on Tuesday.

Activision Unveils Guitar Hero World Tour, First Screens | Game | Life from Wired.com

The latest title in Activision’s Guitar Hero series has been officially announced via official press release, and to the surprise of no one, it sounds like Activision is blatantly copying Rock Band’s style.

Shame, but I suppose it’s necessary.  That said, I’d be more than willing to give it a try if Activision wants to pass along a copy. ;-)

In the end, really, it’s all about song selection.  Just like IDOL.

I’ve picked up two WiiWare games in the last week.  Both are interesting. Neither are worth the money in the end.

The first game is Pop.  It’s a simple game.  The screen fills up with four different colored bubbles, and you have to point and shoot them down.  Stick to one color, string ‘em along, don’t miss, and your score climbs.  Special bubbles cost you points or pop nearby bubbles.  The last trick is that you have a time limit.  Each bubble you pop adds on to the time, so there is a certain speed element.

It’s fun for the first minute.  As the game stretches on five and six minutes and my eyes start to burn from staring at the TV screen without looking away for so long, I get itchy.  Then, I get bored.  The game has a couple different variations including one in which you just pop bubbles for the heck of it. No points, no time limits, no rewards.  I guess it’s the Wii version of bubble wrap.

It’s nice to look at for thirty seconds, but will lose its luster in less than 15 minutes.  Not a good way to blow $7.

Star Soldier R, on the other hand, lasts longer than 15 minutes.  You might get a good solid 30 minutes out of this one.  It’s part Galaga, part — well, it’s like Galaga.  The screen scrolls.  You’re a ship.  Blast everything up efficiently.  There are two levels — one is a two minute game.  The other lasts five minutes.  You compete for the high score, and can compare your score on-line with other people in your neck of the woods.

It’s a very pretty game, but pretty redundant, too. It’s the same level over and over and over again.  You can fine-tune your strategies to get better at that level, but that’s about it.  And this one is $8.

I have $5 worth of Wii points left.  I think I’ll buy a classic NES game via the on-line store and get a lot more gameplay for my dollars.

It’s a been a busy spring of releases for the Wii, and it’ll only get worse with the Wii Fit next week.

But available right this very instant:

DECA SPORTS!  One disc, ten games.  What other console gives you curling game, for goodness’ sake?!?  Has anyone picked this up yet?  What didja think?

This is the highlight, a new puzzle game of sorts from Steven Spielberg.  The press on this so far has been generally positive.  Anyone out there taking a chance on it today?

No, I don’t have time to play it, but it certainly looks like a lot of fun:

Anyone pick it up?  What didja think?

For those keeping track:

• RockBand is coming to the Wii officially on June 22nd. Oddly enough, they say it won’t use Wiimotes. Interesting.

• Wii Ware is coming on May 12th.

• From the same link: Wii Fit is coming May 19th

• Rumor du jour: 3G iPhone to include Video Chat?

• LiveJournal is no longer signing up new free members. In other news: LiveJournal is sending prospective new customers and future paying customers to Wordpress.com, et. al. This blog began as a LiveJournal for about three weeks once upon a time. (Correction: No new ad free accounts.  You can still sign up, though.  OK, that doesn’t sound so bad.)

• Slashdot explains why the XBox isn’t going Blu-Ray.

• Maps of how far Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. (The sites might still be down, so try again in a day or two.)

• The Department of Justice says XM and Sirius can merge.

It’s the week all die-hard Nintendo fans have been waiting for:

There are midnight openings, tournaments at major stores, and general hullabaloo associated with this one.  Are you getting it?

I’m not.  I would like to, eventually, but Guitar Hero and a couple of other games I plan on talking about real soon have captured my interest. I don’t need to start on this one right away.  Someday, I’ll jump on the bandwagon because it does look cool.  Right now, I don’t need a big button-jamming game like this.  It will, however, give me a very good reason to use the classic controller I got for Christmas. . .

• This guy will do some things for money. He’ll take a trip and send you a pic. He’ll write a letter of apology. He’ll think about you. Weird, but fascinating. And, no doubt, a big profit making venture.

• Pictures of an avalanche on Mars.

• Yes, this is incredibly freaky. Blame Johnny Bacardi for pointing it out.

• The Sony Trinitron is dead. The last TV I bought before going HDTV was a Sony Trinitron. It was a great machine, and still runs to this day in my parents’ living room, some 7 years after I bought it, as I recall. Still looks great, too, though it does have an odd tendency to snap out of mono sound into stereo and vice versa without provocation. The stereo sound only sounds good if you’re sitting directly in front of it. Seated to either side, it sounds hollow.

• One man played Wii Fit for a week. He lives to tell the tale.

• Evolution of the TiVo logo.

• Viveza is now available! Click here for a 15 day free trial. Unfortunately, the final program will set you back $250.

• Bad Microsoft! Bad! This kind of behavior isn’t exactly unique to Microsoft, though, and the end result isn’t too surprising, but that doesn’t excuse it, either.

• There’s at least two reasons I knew that Apple wouldn’t be introducing Blu Ray drives into their laptops last week. First, it’s too soon. Those units that went on sale probably started production BEFORE the war was over. Second, battery life. I can’t imagine that Blu Ray doesn’t suck the life out of batteries, given the way Flash and every other video playing bit of software does at a faster rate than most everything else. Here’s confirmation on the battery life. I still think you’ll see Blu Ray drives on the Mac Pro first. It’s always plugged in, so battery life isn’t an issue there. You’ll likely never see Blu Ray in an Air.

• How to make a better Twitter. First step: Better uptime. Most important step: Get all the people on Twitter to migrate there. It won’t be easy.

• Unbelievably, SCO still hasn’t gone away.

• Happy March, everyone!

Amazon did four special Wii game sales Friday. Super Paper Mario was their deal of the day and sold out pretty fast. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn followed. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption sold out at $29.99. (Heck, for that price even I might have picked it up.) But the one deal of the day I was home for started at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Five minutes after it started, I clicked on it:

Sold out in less than five minutes. I bet it didn’t last a minute. Wii fans are ravenous.

I’m going back to Guitar Hero III now, thanks.

Commodore 64 games coming to European VC later this year - Nintendo Wii Fanboy

We’ve known since late 2006 that Nintendo intended to add classic titles from the Commodore 64’s library to its Virtual Console service, but Nintendo of Europe has been hesitant to reveal any concrete details until now.According to NoE, the C64 games are only planned for release in Europe so far, and they will be available to purchase for 500 Wii Points (€5, approximately $7.35) later this year. 500 Wii Points?! That’s as much as an NES release on the Wii Shop Channel!

• And Wal-Mart drives the final stake through HD-DVD’s heart. It’s now officially dead, and we’re all just waiting for the press release from Toshiba to make it official.

• Michael Bay takes the credit. ;-)

• News item my mind is incapable of comprehending: SCO Rises From The Dead. Someone is throwing $100 million at it, and will likely restart the lawsuit machine. It is, after all, the only thing SCO knows how to do — and it fails miserably at it every time. Feh.

• Today’s ‘24′ news: A Special Edition DVD Set of Season 1 is coming.

• Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers Brawl: The Trailer. This is supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

• A little late by now, but still funny: Geeky Valentines.

One more mini link dump tomorrow. Then, it’s some actual writing on Sunday. Promise! (It’s already done, so that’s how I know. . .)